Category: Harvest Abundance

At a conversation organized by the Indian Prostrate Cancer Foundation, Raja Krishnamoorthy, the moderator, asked us to reflect on the value of abundance thinking. He said a good state to be in, in Life, is where you can wake up and say “Kurai Onrum Illai” – no grievances or complaints whatsoever! I have a friend, who’s in his late 70s now, who uses this line as a response to the “How are you?” greeting! How beautiful, I thought,…if you can truly respond every time you are asked “How are you?”…saying you have no issues, no complaints with Life…“Kurai Onrum Illai”!

Honestly speaking, I could never get to this state until I learnt to rein in my mind. It wasn’t until I learned to practice daily silence periods – mouna – that I could see the abundance in my Life.

To be sure, the human mind thinks 60,000 thoughts daily. And, if the mind is untrained, it is pulling you in different directions – often illogically, randomly. From grief to anger to guilt to fear to insecurity to worry to anxiety the mind seesaws between the past and the future. By nature, the mind thrives only in the past or the future. In the present, as Osho, the Master, points out, there is no mind. There’s just you, the real you, immersed, in the now, in whatever is, in whatever is happening! So, the secret to celebrate Life, to soak in the abundance that you have, is this: you must bring your mind to attend only to the present moment. Like the physical body resists training in a gym, the mind will resist your attempts to train it. But the beauty is that just as you can train your body, you can train your mind too. So, over time, I taught myself the art of mouna, remaining silent (irrespective of the environment or circumstance I am placed in) for an hour daily. I can now drop anchor wherever I am – in a busy traffic signal, at an airport, in a courtroom or a boring business meeting and even when every shred of material security is absent. And, miraculously, when I am anchored, I see only abundance in and around me.

So, I can totally relate to Raja’s call to reflect there and to my senior friend’s greeting: “Kurai Onrum Illai”!

Actually, this approach to Life is neither philosophical nor is it metaphorical. It is a very real, very sensible way to look at your Life. Life operates on this principle of compassion towards all that it creates. So, the truth is, all of us, at any time, have everything that we need. It is only our desire that our Life should be different from what it is that makes us suffer. So, simply, we cause our own suffering. Now, my Life, for instance, is ridden with debt, and has been, for almost a decade now, despite our best efforts, often about struggling to meet and cover living expenses. There’s denial of work, rejection, public judgment (for our inability to repay our debt) and there’s so much pain caused by the legal and social course that a bankruptcy takes you through. So, if I look at what isn’t, if I allow myself to be steeped in scarcity thinking, I will end up being a nervous wreck – depressed and worthless. So will Vaani. Which is why, we decided to look at each other, our companionship, and our two children – who have grown up to be fine, well-anchored, young adults despite this time of intense strife for our family – and celebrate this blessing that we have – of each other’s presence! We reasoned that even if we have no money, we have the choice to be happy for just being alive and together. We also have the blessing of so many, many, many friends and some family members who love us unconditionally and continue to stand by us and support us – no matter what we are going through and however long it is taking! So, we see the need to be eternally grateful to Life. Just counting our blessings makes us deliriously happy! And we go about spreading awareness of this opportunity called happiness, that’s freely available 24×7, around us. We wake up every morning saying a big thank you to Life, and flow with Life as it flows that day. There’s no ‘like’ button or ‘dislike’ button in our Life anymore. There’s just a ‘be’ button. So, we just are.

Therefore, we know, “Kurai Onrum Illai” is a great way to greet Life and to live it fully – despite your circumstances!

PS: “Kurai Onrum Illai” is a famous song composed by C.Rajagopalachari and rendered by M.S.Subbulakshmi.

PS: Prostrate Cancer is curable and a simple blood test to review your PSA levels is all that you need to do for early action!

The seed becomes the tree and also the fruit. So, if the seed is of bitter gourd, you are not going to get tomatoes from it. Unless you discover what you have done wrong, maybe get rid of all the bitter gourd growth, till your garden and sow tomato seeds, you ain’t gettin’ no tomatoes!

The problem is with the way we have all been brought up. And the problem is with the way we continue to bring up our kids. We have been taught that to be successful, you must be the first in your class, you must compete and vanquish the rest, you must not trust people__neighbors, classmates, even extended family because you ‘may hurt yourself or even be cheated’. We have been taught that security comes from money. And so we must only choose vocations where there’s money. But the soul demands nourishment from love, joy and bliss as you reach your 40s and beyond. And by the time you start seeking it__which is why you are on this Blog and reading this post!!!__your seed of ‘me-firstism and money-over-joy’ has grown to become a big, big tree and looks seemingly infallible. This tree will bear only the fruit of ‘insecurity and incompleteness’. You are insecure about many aspects of your Life and you know that already! In order to help yourself to the fruit called bliss, you must sow the seed of love – of loving Life and accept it for what it is. You must tend the plant, as it sprouts, with joy. Only then will your soul feel blissful.

The biggest gift that we can give our children__and indeed to all of mankind__is to encourage them to take the right steps, sow the right seeds and lead them to follow their bliss. You don’t want them to feel the way you are at your age, do you? If you want them to live intelligently, let them to be successful with and in love, egg them on to immerse themselves in what they simply love doing and you stop worrying about them. When we sow the seeds of love and bliss in our own families, we will harvest abundance.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer 1: The author, AVIS, does not claim that he is the be-all, know-all and end-all of all that he shares based on experiences and learnings. AVIS has nothing against or for any religion. If the reader has a learning to share, most welcome. If the reader has a bone to pick or presents a view, which may affect the sentiments of other followers/readers, then this Page’s administrators may have to regrettably delete such a comment and even block such a follower. Disclaimer 2: No Thought expressed here is original though the experience of the learning shared may be unique. AVIS has little interest in either infringing upon or claiming copyright of any referenced material published on this Page. The images/videos used on this Page/Post, that are not created by AVIS, are purely for illustrative purposes. They belong to their original owners/creators. The author does not intend profiting from them nor is there any covert claim to copyright any of them.